


a thousand songs

by teavious



Category: The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-11
Updated: 2015-11-11
Packaged: 2018-05-01 03:59:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5191364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teavious/pseuds/teavious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And if Achilles' death comes first, how does Patroclus' pain taste like?</p>
            </blockquote>





	a thousand songs

Your own father abandoned you, the blood of his blood, and the one who carried you in her womb for months, who went through the pain of giving birth to you, has forgotten you as soon as she blinked again.

When Achilles chooses you, over tens of others so much worthy, you want to ask everyone you know _why?_ But it will take you a while to understand that the bonds of choice are stronger, more beloved and important than those by blood.

You look at Achilles, as he stays proud for you, giving no explanation even to his father, and his face when he turns to you says it all: _I am yours. You are mine. There's all that is._

 

* * *

 

Maybe this is all you do, you think, demented - climb walls, and fall from them. But here, before even the whispers of a kidnapping and war, the walls take other forms - your father's appreciation, your mother's reactions. Achilles' acknowledgement, Thetis' acceptance. Achilles' love.

 

* * *

 

When you see him fight, it's almost a religious experience, like all the gods blessed you at the same time and it was too hard to deal with that much perfection. You were never a pious man, but this makes you want to bathe in the blood of sacrifices, drop to your knees until there's only the bone to see, pray until your lips turn to dust, cry out until your throat knows nothing but his name.

There's this madness pouring through you, your desperate need to convince yourself he is real and only a human, that he can feel the same kind of pain you suffered through for so long, that he looks at you and sees an equal, and not a scrap of dirt before him.

He is too much to take in, in fight as well as in ideas and words, and you know this before you launch at him and ask him, tell him about how great he is, words spoken like you're both adoring and hating a god for his immortality and mercy to turn his eyes in your direction.

His smile is like the sun and it unfolds all the thunders of Zeus in your stomach.

 

* * *

 

"Guess what I am thinking about." You ask, your favorite game to play during lazy afternoon.

He turns to face you, grinning like he cornered you, and answers.

"Me."

 _Yes, yes, a thousand times yes._ You don't say this out loud, but if you try a little bit harder, you can hear crowds chanting his name, and your chest aches with pride. And every time you lose, every time you stay just a bit behind him and keep your mouth shut for his sake, or maybe speak up when your council is not wanted, there's just this feeling. **HE**. And it's enough. He is enough, a thousand times yes, and if there will be a time when you won't think about him, that is when you will be dead.

 

* * *

 

"What are you thinking about?" he asks, after you met his mother and knew what she wants. You look at him, imagining him a god, a creature so far away that your hands will never be able to brush against his skin, and maybe if they will, it will be only to turn them to stone.

 _You_ , you want to say, because this is the answer to every single thing you know in this world. _Achilles_. But you tell him more of it, and no matter how much time he's willing to give to you, to what you two together mean, you'll take it all. _You'll take it all._

 

* * *

 

You cannot name the things you hope for. You're greedy, there are more than even you can believe it, and Achilles is at the top of every mental list you make. You want him, all of him: the shared laughs and the games, the eyes you stare into like they're a miracle, the way the sun goes around his head like it's the world crowning him the hero of everything, the way his touch feels against your skin, the way his smile prolongs your life with ten seconds every time you see it. But you also want what you only dream of at night: his lips on yours, soft, and his mouth open welcoming you like it's your only home, your hands exploring his body, tracing it with kisses that are more like prayers, skin on skin so close that no one could ever separate you.

You're greedy and nothing but one thing will satisfy you. _Achilles_. Achilles, Achilles, Achilles.

You're greedy, and the first taste of him asks for _more, more, more_ , like they're the hungry enquires of soldiers for blood.

You're greedy, and even in the light of your greed, you want him in any way he wants to give himself to you.

You're greedy, but you don't forgive lessons hard learnt. _Whip me_ , you think. This is what you deserve, you think, for every other greedy thought you've had, for how you acted upon them, for how you still want more, more, more.

His absence is too much and you're too weak to resist it, so with greed and need and love. You think of love as your greed, too, and maybe it's only love that makes you feel so mad that you run, with hope to catch the fastest boy in the world, still, delayed and weak as you are.

You're greedy, but when you feel your name in his mouth, it's all you needed.

You're greedy, and when you get even more than what you hoped for, you don't know what to do. Your body feels like it will burst and ache forever with pleasure and happiness every moment, and greedily, you look at your own personal god.

_I'm yours. You're mine. That is all there is._

 

* * *

 

Little boys, how could you even think you are grown? There are lessons you will never learn, feelings you will never experience.

Maybe, you think, humans never grow. They just start imitating the gods, talking about the future with a stupid assurance, when this is the only thing them and you and no one will ever have for sure.

* * *

 

There's this feeling at the pit of your stomach, arising out the most horrible parts of yourself, those that make your reason cower and cry, and people only call jealousy, disappointment, anger, guilt. You've lived with it for such a long time that, when it disappears, seeing Achilles and desiring him, and not what he is or what he owns, you're not sure you can find yourself anymore. Bu you're not alone. When he waits, his arm spread towards you, your skin tingles in anticipation, and being with him feels like you're renowned each and every morning you wake with his face that close to yours.

Your heart beats, unstoppable like waves during a storm, and your worst beasts are tamed, in love, just like you.

 

* * *

 

There aren't many moments when you'll be more desperate than when Achilles gives you hope and could easily and cruelly trample it. He gives you the whole world instead, he gives you the miracle of his touch and care.

There isn't anyone else in his life that will make Achilles breathless other than you, when you touch him, when you search the top of the pleasure he can reach with your hands and lips and body.

There isn't anyone in both of your existence that will make you do the things you do together, that will bring out of your body the hoarse moans, the screams of ecstasy.

You'll never feel closer to a god than in those moments when love blooms and flourishes between you two. He will never feel closer to glory than when he brings you to your limit, his name repeated over and over by your mouth, as he keeps spilling yours from his lips.

 

* * *

 

"I'm going to be the first", Achilles boasts, and you never wanted anything harder than making sure he will be happy forever. This is a heavy burden you have to wear, someone's happiness, but it doesn't feel as it with his body pressed to yours, in a cave that is as far from the world, as your mind is from war.

You're not strong, neither smart. But no matter what the gods will throw in your way, in his way, for your roads is one and the same, from the time you laid your eyes on him, you will face it all. You will fight madness, making out of love the elixir to every disease, killing every danger, making out of yourself an unbreakable shield, out of your resolution a not missing spear.

 

* * *

 

"You do not give things up so easily, now, as you once did," Chiron says to you, but he doesn't know that you will never leave Achilles, no matter what, making him the beautiful of most exceptions. You will never leave him. It will be this, always, for as long as he will let you.

 

* * *

 Wealth and reputation are the things your people have always killed for. You'd kill for a chance to defy destiny, to stop time in this moment, when your roads will be decided and fame will be chosen, until your breath stops, until all this mortality that is nothing to better powers and heroes pours out of you like pus. You’re ready to stay in supplication until your arms and legs won’t know to obey you, if that will somehow bring you closer to Achilles.

 _Be wary of loving too much,_ the eyes of the world seems to tell you, the tale behind the eyes of every man. But you fist your hands, you will your legs to move forward, you pray for the waters to get you faster where you want, where you need to be.

* * *

 

You once said you will be able to recognize your lover even with mind clouded by madness, by gods’ revenge. You prove yourself worthy of such big words when you see in the moves of a woman the hips of your beloved, when dresses and jewels and face hidden aren’t enough to hold the aching need in both of your bodies to just be next to each other already, to just touch yourself in bliss you’re together, again. His touch is enough to steady you through what follows, his breath coming in familiar rhythm, the smell of his skin, even if hidden by the perfumes, still so deeply ingrained in your memory that you can even pull apart the flowers used to make up the fragrance. You’re still uneasy and fearful, in this kingdom unknown and in the face of a terrible goddess, just as he never is, never will. 

 

* * *

 

A part of you thinks you stopped breathing the first time when Achilles’ fate was sealed. How there are only two choices, and one isn’t good enough for any man, let alone one like him. Who was he if not miraculous, and radiant? Who was he if not destined for fame?

The _yes_ , said over and over by your own mouth, when all you want is to scream and cry and beg for another chance to make things right, tastes like sand and blood.

 

* * *

 

How foolish of you, little boys, to think that future is more than a flickering glimpse of hope. How horrible to taste the what-if followed by death, how horrible to think that you will have everything brutally taken from your arms, even as your heart pumps only begs, for more time.

* * *

 

The gentleness of his hands working around the wounds on your feet is making you want to tear up, because now you have your fates tied to a man, Hector, and men are horrible judges of time.

“He’s done nothing to me,” Achilles says, but you can feel the black clouds rolling, these words sounding more like a challenge to the Fates, than reassurance for lovers.

 

* * *

 

You never tasted fear of disappointment as bitter as the one when you feel like people will judge too harshly of your and Achilles’ relationship. There’s a fame that should be protected, topics that shouldn’t be brought up, truths that they turned to lies. It’s in your nature to give and give, until everyone is satisfied, but you should know better that no one is truly so, ever. It’s in Achilles’ nature to keep close the little things and people he treasures the most, and if he’s ready to give his life for a cause he doesn’t believe in, his decisions for a mother with too little to say, but too much to do, then he’s keeping you his only.

_I am yours. You are mine. There's all that is._

 

* * *

 

 _Gods save us from ourselves. Gods save us from ourselves. Gods save us from ourselves._ Odysseus’ words ring truer and truer in your ear, the longer you think about them. Indeed, gods save us from ourselves.

 

* * *

 

He has light enough to make heroes of them all. The soldiers are chanting his name, in its own enough to raise an army. Your head swings from one side to another, following the rhythm of their voices, in a constant, pained and unspoken _no_ , because this is the truth of his mightiness, and you might just crush under the reality of it all. There’s a _no_ on Thetis’ side as well, because after all if this world will be kind enough to you, you won’t see a day more than Achilles. There’s a _no_ from time itself, as you look at old and young; the first hoping for the latter to reach his age, for him to never do so.

Every day, his name is chanted some more, crowd worshipping the best of all Greeks, the best of all world. But you don’t need this; you already know this for a fact. So you swallow the bitterness, look at him with all the love you can muster, and let him soak in his pride, in the cheers, all things he deserves and more, that he asks for when he deems it right.

 _Eat the whole world raw,_ you want to tell him. _It’s the least you can do, for what the world is going to do to you._

 

* * *

 

He is the best the gods have ever made. You know this already, you don’t need words of council that stab at your heart and Achilles’ humanity. You can’t think of him as a weapon; he was too kind and broken in your arms the day before. You can’t see in the lines of his smile the cruel twist of a snarl. You can’t imagine him as anything than the temple you’ve worshipped at for so long, as anything less than the most human and genius of them all.

“You are wrong,” you say to Odysseus. _You are wrong_ , you say to everyone who dares speaking about Achilles’ ever again. _You are wrong_ , you say to the Fates that want to take him too fast.

 

* * *

 

“You are wrong,” Achilles’ tells you when you start thinking that you can’t protect the one you love, or the feelings you have for each other. There’s a dead snake in his hands and a look of content and relief on his face, because, after all, what you have is made up of two, and what one can’t do, the other will.

 _If I can’t live, at least I can make sure you won’t get killed_ , is what Achilles can’t and doesn’t need to say.

* * *

 

Hector. His name hits your chest, leaving you breathless, his presence turning you faithless. You pray to this glorious, mighty appearance _please don’t take him from me, please, please, please._ Achilles’ is the one answering your prayers, performing miracle after miracle, killing man after man, with a face as clear as back in the days spent with Chiron.

This is only the beginning, you remind yourself. Only the beginning.

This is only what he was born for, he reminds you. Only what he was born for.

 

* * *

 

Then there’s Briseis, the girl who does not trust the words, but trusts the acts, trusts a kiss, trusts your hands, trusts Achilles to not ruin her all over again. She goes on living, accepting her blessed position in the camp of you two men who blind her with your love. She grows, blooms, and you’re changing under her influence too. She doesn’t forgive as easy as you are able to – after all, you don’t know how to be angry at the ones you love, but you see her eyes searching for Achilles at the end of the day, searching for wounds, and you’re even more eager to prove her and everyone in the camp that their hero is fine and well, yet again.

You spend the mornings talking, words spilled more easily at dawn, and like that her name doesn’t sound like the mercy and kindness you showed, Achilles’ resolve to destroy is not so true anymore. He softens at her name; he sees too, how of greatly importance she is to you, how of greatly importance you are to her. It makes him want to squeeze you until your bones snap and you turn into a single creature, but Achilles looks down, looks up and then turns to look at you. Your breath catches in your throat, his head golden with the sun rays, and it's like your heart is relearning how to beat when he leans in, to kiss your temple.

His lips are soft, even as his skin hardened against the fights and it feels more and more unfamiliar at night, when you touch his body. But this, his lips over yours, his voice lost in love and sleepiness saying your name over and over again, _Pa-tro-clus, Pa-tro-clus..._ You won't be able to not recognize this even five feet under the ground, even if turned to ash over and over again.

 

* * *

 

You need it sometimes, after watching too many of his miracles, after seeing too many of the war’s horrors, the assurance that Achilles is not just what others make him out to be. But you love him and you know truths about this man that no one else can recall. You know his insides and outsides; you know his sweat-covered body and his kingly allure. And even as the Greeks unite, kill after kill, killed men after killed man bringing them closer and closer in a fierce camaraderie, there’s still _Achilles and Patroclus_ , two as a one. When you think of this, you smile to yourself, because inside your tent, there is Achilles and Patroclus and Briseis, always she as well, one of you and not one of them, listening the bloody tales of war with glittering eyes, hand resting on Achilles’ knee when he is done, squeezing when he says, breathless and ready to fall in your arms and make her leave, that they will all remember him.

Briseis’ laugh bounces off you, all men gathered around a fire by the love and respect you bear for one man, the best of them all. Briseis is one of those, and when Achilles’ eyes catch her’s, there are only small smiles exchanged, knowing of pain bigger than yours, of a bond that even you couldn’t comprehend.

There are even jokes. “Briseis, if I ever wished to take a wife, it would be you.” You say, and then Achilles rises from his place, pulling you close and kissing you, making her laugh. “No, I would take you as a wife,” he says, and then grinning, he’ll lean to kiss her too.

 

* * *

 

There are more prophecies and you are sick and tired of them, of the way they make you fear your own shadow, even in the middle of the night, Achilles’ arms around you. The best of Myrmidons is a big guess, and prayers without a clear purpose aren’t exactly appreciated by divinities receiving thousands of such requests.

 

* * *

“I hope he swallows them one by one.” Achilles’ anger burns and threatens to destroy the world before Hector will get to deal with the Greeks. His voice is strained, pained and he is so hurt that you want to go and kill the offenders yourself. The news of Briseis is even much worse, and you can see his hands trembling, one willing to go to the spear and start a war over his prize and girl, the other answering the calls of the sea, of his mother.

He turns around, leaving you with a bitter taste in your mouth, despair in each of your steps. She accepts everything that is to come; proud with slight desperation in the hopeful way she looks at you. If there’s nothing that Achilles can do, there’s even less that you can do, and when they come to take her, you seize her by the waist, kissing her forehead, appreciating for a moment her courage and intelligence. You can hear her heart, fluttering in fear of the cruel king who will own her, and her touch is the sting of betrayal.

 

* * *

 

He is your half soul, your soul mate. No matter how many times the gods will try to separate you in other lives, they won’t be able. A too big part of you is him, a too big part of him is you. There’s so much between you two that no song will be long enough or worthy enough to tell your tales of love and pain, blood and touches. But there are songs already made, and more will continue to be created, about Achilles, the best of the Greeks, with his speed and god-like strikes, with his pride so big that ate the plain between his people and Troy, letting people be killed.

Your skin crawls the more time passes and he doesn’t budge from his determination. You seek the smallest refuge in Briseis, with her warm words and careful replies.

“Best of Myrmidons,” you whisper to her as you leave, and she nods, gracefully accepting the compliment, because what would have been of her, if not for Achilles, for you?

 

* * *

 

Agamemnon kills her, raged at his own men being killed, at his wall crumbled to dust, at Achilles’ stubbornness. The air smells like burned wood and blood and death and the news are coming slower. The Greeks are falling still, Achilles and you watching still. You repeat mistakes that should have been remembered, the future hazy and spoken too bravely of, and when Briseis’ name falls from the soldier’s mouth, asking for help, asking for recognition for their people, asking for Achilles to lead the armies to glory beyond that of any mortal, his eyes are ablaze.

 

* * *

_Bring him back to me,_ your being breathes and it feels like only those words keep you from crumbling. You see the men, chests puffing with pride at their king. _He is mine, he is mine, he is mine;_ your hands ache to touch him, to pull him close for a kiss that might stall him forever. He turns around, grinning at you, and his excitement and the pride rolling off him burns at your skin. He leans over, closer, his breath a cascade of familiarity over you, and your hands hungrily search for his, squeezing, his warmth intoxicating.

"Come back to me," you say to him, and you feel his hand trembling for a second, before he pulls away, smile faltering.

"I will be fine." he tells you. Himself.

You lay your eyes on the army in front of you, slight nods of recognition in your way, and you bite your lips until it bleeds and hurts, because you wish them all dead, if Achilles is still standing in their middle.

 

* * *

 

Maybe Achilles has run after himself all his life: to reach the glory promised, to grow as tall and handsome and strong as the gods. But it is too late when either of you realize that he's a snake biting his own tail, choking on what made him and biting down tears that taste of failure and death.

 

* * *

 

Achilles once told you, when you were first discovering the depths of affections and different ways in which one could say I love you, that he feels like he could eat the whole world raw. You believed him, with this teeth showing in a dazzling grin, making you drunk on happiness, because that is what you felt at that time too.

When Achilles promises pain and horrors and the same fate as the world to the hero in front of him, you can only chant _no no no_ , without him hearing it in his mad power and need to destroy. The world is drowned in stories about the best man of all Greeks, and Hector will be drowned in sorrows so raw, in wounds so terrible that humanity will never recover from that display of power, so crazed.

When he lunges at Hector, his teeth are showing, barred like those of a beast attacking.

 

* * *

 

Hector dies; he falls easily and even you are surprised to see this fighting monster thrown at the ground so fast. Today is a day for everything to happen, you think as cheers rise up from your side and the mass of soldiers pushes forward some more, towards Troy, towards  Troy.

 

* * *

There's that unnatural silence again, the one that for you equals fear and your darling's mother, the fierceness of immortal being, their recklessness and their easiness to punish and kill. But there's no sea-nymph appearing, just your throat becoming more and more raw and pained, as you continue to scream, the image of gods-blessed Achilles, laid in a blood bath that you know is his, always painted before your eyes, the only truth that matters now in this world.

_He's gone, he's gone, he's gone._

You crush into the sand, head over his and grateful for your long hair, because you can kiss him without others seeing and judging the best of all men. 

The spear that is said that only Achilles could yield is easy as a mere knife in your hand, Chiron's magic just barely remembered in your mind, or maybe the mercy of a god who couldn't stand your cries, this display of doom and grief and love so deep it bites at the whole world, and the pain in your stomach is nothing compared to the one you feel when your hand reach for Achilles' and it's only coldness, too much coldness. The blood is staining your tunic, and this crimson is livelier than the one that killed you both, the one of house of Priam, Hector's.

 

* * *

 

 

You saved him from himself, from the pride that burned at his throat and ate raw your heart. You did it, but no one stood to save him from the perfectly thrown arrow of a god's wrath, and what good did your act do, if it pushed him into the arms of Death, from whom you tried to keep him away all this time? Where there is greed there is hope, you thought at some point, when Achilles was the hero everyone needed him to be, and the one you never wanted to see him as. If that was true, then why your greed, hunger and ache for him was not enough to give you the hoped more years by his side?

 

* * *

 

As you fall next to Achilles, the hopeful question _, What have Hector done to me?_ is sour and ironic, because look at him, a mere hero and no immortal as even you have hoped he'll be.

But is that kind of immortality really worth it, when you can live with the world eating at your names, when you can live on the lips of all the men who thought both of you greater than they will ever be?

**Author's Note:**

> I think it's very obvious this book ruined me. I have no idea how I lived before this in my life, and now that I know it, I have no idea how I will live without being in a constant state of rereading it.  
> You can also find me on [tumblr](http://teavious.tumblr.com/)!


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